


the turning of the seasons

by Ursula (lovesthesoundof)



Category: Spartacus: Gods of the Arena
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:53:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovesthesoundof/pseuds/Ursula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Tullius' aim had been poorer?  (AU, 0x04-0x06)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the turning of the seasons

**Author's Note:**

> Recorded version now available on my tumblr: http://lovesthesoundof.tumblr.com/post/25591498295/

Red curls, cool and soft, gathered in her hand.  Footsteps gaining speed, haste, dread.  Tullius' words ringing in her ears.  _She holds my reply._

 

Curtain pulled aside.

 

Mask dropping from fingers, scream splitting the air.  Gaia, Gaia, in a pool of blood.

 

Gaia still moving.

 

Gaia still breathing.

 

Gaia reaching for her.

 

*

 

The medicus is hours with her, stitches and herbs and prayers.  Time and again he says it staggers mind that she survived.  Some god, he says, must have preserved her.  _Laverna_ , says Batiatus under his breath, meaning it in admiration - perhaps she really **has** charmed the goddess of thieves, and learned the art of stealing life from the jaws of death.  Lucretia's first instinct is that Venus favours her friend, that passion incarnate has reached out to defend a kindred spirit - but then the thought turns sour, for as miraculous as her survival may be Gaia is far from unmarked.  The scars will stay with her forever, and beauty was the principle currency with which she hoped to buy her future.

 

Whatever divine hand plucked her from death's grasp has exacted a terrible price, and Lucretia - though she knows it is foolish - prefers not to think Venus so unkind.

 

*

 

A week passes before she can rise.  In all this time she says nothing, not even to Lucretia.  Her eyes are wide and fearful; she stares at empty air as though at horrors.  When finally she creeps from bed, pads barefoot into the rest of the house, Lucretia misses the moment - Gaia's footsteps are so light that the first she knows of her is a shadow among the drapes, one dark eye peeping out.

 

She has never stiffened like this in an embrace.  Lucretia's heart breaks a little more.

 

*

 

She helps Lucretia to dress her, stubbornly refusing ornaments.  The villa is warm - almost unpleasantly so - but one glance at polished bronze and she wraps herself, shivering, in a shawl.

 

And then, in a whisper, the first words come.

 

"Why adorn a broken statue, dearest friend?  My glory is gone, shattered. ...No one will have Gaia now."

 

She does not tense as Lucretia embraces her, assures her that **she** will have her - but neither does she respond.  One could squeeze more warmth from a sack of grain.

 

Not for the first time, Lucretia silently swears she will see Tullius dead.

 

*

 

She will not leave the villa.  If a man comes near she shrinks from him; unknown men send her scurrying to hide.

 

*

 

Solonius seems relieved to see Gaia alive.  Titus makes it clear he would rather she had died.

 

Both express the feeling that she brought this on herself.

 

For all Solonius' sympathies, Lucretia hates the two men equally.

 

*

 

She finds her hiding in the kitchen.  Startled to see her sitting in a corner, she almost drops the dish she was carrying.

 

"You have not seen me," says Gaia quietly.  She pulls the shawl tighter around her shoulders, but it cannot conceal the two gouge marks on one side of her jaw: as Melitta nods assent she wishes fervently that the widow's words could be true.  She has seen too much in this house.

 

It is no comfort to know that a citizen woman can suffer more than a slave.

 

*

 

It is unlike him to stand by in shock at the sight of violence.  He is accustomed to men, though, men and swords and blood, not a woman bursting into his cell to dash a cup of wine from Melitta's hand and strike her across the face.  A few moments more are lost in shock at the woman's appearance: he has not seen Gaia since the night of the party, and the change in her makes him a little sick.  He has seen worse, true, but again on a man; to see a woman thus marred is horrific.

 

"He brings nothing but ruin to this house, and you are fool enough to drink his wine?"

 

Melitta, still spluttering out mulsum from the slap, looks more confused than hurt.  Gaia whirls on him then, and he loses another moment on the look in her eyes: not anger, not affront, but **fear**.  "Did you drink?  Answer!"  He shakes his head dumbly, and she scoops the cup from the floor and thrusts it at him.  "Do you not smell it?  Tullius sends **poison**!"

 

All he can smell is honey in wine, but then Melitta is gripped by wracking coughs and in his panic he does not see Gaia leave.

 

*

 

"You might have given warning," she reproaches quietly.  "I convince as well in full knowledge of the truth."

 

There is never any question of poison finding its way to Gaia's lips.  She knows her wine too well, enjoys it too well by scent to have missed the bitter note of death.  Lucretia looks down at the mosaic.  "I feared your judgement."

 

Gaia touches her arm briefly - a soothing gesture, but still lacking the old open warmth.  "We do what we must.  He has long been an obstacle to the elevation of this house."

 

"The elevation of this house," says Lucretia fervently, seeking the retreating white hand and clasping it between her own, "is **nothing** next to securing vengeance for dearest friend."  Gaia gives her a flat look, and it staggers mind she cannot see the scheme - she always had such talent for these things.  Lucretia explains, all pleading smile.  "...Quintus will not forgive Tullius this.  We will see him dead."

 

"And will that return lustre to once ivory shoulder?  Return worth to damaged goods?"

 

Gaia's hand has not moved in hers.  To see her so detached, so dispassionate, makes Lucretia feel cold and sick.  "You shall not be turned from this house," she assures her once again, assures **herself**.  "Not while I draw breath."

 

Silence reigns for several moments.  Then Gaia sighs quietly, resignedly.  "...See it done, then.  Avenge death of dearest friend."

 

Chill fear grips Lucretia's throat.  "You live yet!"

 

"And were better dead!"  The outburst makes Lucretia start - Gaia is on her feet, hand whipped free of her grasp, stalking away.  She turns back after a few paces, her dress a flurry of deep blue.  "Lucretia, what **am** I?  Little better than burdensome poor relative, too unsightly to catch approving eye - "

 

"Say not so."  It hurts her to hear it.  Hurts like she imagines broken earthenware must hurt, slicing into soft white flesh.

 

"Truth is truth, spoken or otherwise."  For all of three heartbeats Gaia is as marble, cold and resolute, and then she seems once more to shrink.  The frost in her eyes melts away, but the raw ache beneath is almost worse.  "...It lifts the heart to think of Tullius' fall.  But for how long?  Vengeance aside, what remains for me?"

 

Lucretia rises, goes to her side.

 

"I remain."

 

Though she will not return the embrace, at least now she softens in loving arms.

 

*

 

He has always liked Gaia, in the way that men do like a truly troublesome woman.  He grew to like her more as she brought him good fortune, and more still when she turned out to be such **fun**.  But he never expected it to tug at his heart to see her, all frightened eyes and silence now, peeping out at him from behind a curtain and not taking to flight at his approach.

 

A long moment passes before she steps out to meet him.  He touches her cheek, the undamaged cheek, and she trembles with the effort of not running but her eyes know him, her eyes **plead** with him not to have changed, to still accept her, to still be **safe**.

 

"You know Quintus, Gaia," Lucretia whispers nearby. "He would no more harm you than harm me."

 

She swallows thickly, closes her eyes, and reaches up to cover his hand with hers. A warm tear falls against his fingertip.

 

He never expected to find his own vision blurring in response.

 

*

 

They let him see his wife at last.  She is too tired for much talk, but some of the colour is back in her.  It lifts his heart to see her healing.  Perhaps she will never be the same, but she has been spared death - and he, through that, spared much pain and loneliness.

 

He asks a moment to speak with Gaia, to thank her for Melitta's life, but receives no answer.

 

*

 

He sees her in the shadows as he prepares to depart the ludus.  She watches him carefully, and though she remains at a distance she does not shrink from his gaze.

 

When he brings Tullius to his knees, it will be for Melitta.  But the first strike, he decides, will be for this unlikely saviour, and for the terrible marks on her once-ivory shoulder.

 

*

 

When she brings the news, Gaia simply looks into the darkness beyond the candlelit balcony and says, "Good."

 

*

 

"I have wished to speak with you.  To thank you.  By your hand my wife lives yet."

 

She regards him coolly.  "Tullius desired my death also.  Why should I grant him the satisfaction of taking even one woman's life?"

 

It has nothing to do with compassion, then.  He should not have expected it to.

 

But then her features soften a little, and she says, "for what worth it carries, it would always have lifted heart to see her survive" - and he wonders if perhaps she is just becoming a little like him, growing hard and quiet under her scars, and finds it difficult to say tender things of anyone.

 

*

 

The widow's appearance draws stares among the honoured guests at the games.  Lucretia watches them watch her, watches their gazes catch upon the bold revelation of scars she no longer hides, watches the thoughts race behind their eyes - _how did she come by such marks?  How did she **survive**?_

 

Shifting her attention to her friend, Lucretia realises there is something entirely new in the way Gaia responds to those around her.  Her very presence **demands** their attention.  She carries herself with cold, fierce pride, seeming to feed upon the same looks of horror and fright that so late ago would have caused her to wilt.  Like the earth her namesake, her seasons are changing.  Gone from her countenance are the joys of spring, the warmth of summer, the lingering sadness of autumn; all is covered over with the beautiful, frozen mask of winter.

 

And Lucretia, mortal witness, at once adores and fears her.

 


End file.
